I’ve spent a fair bit of my adult life working on emotional intelligence.
I can read a room.
Spot the micro-shift in tone.
Sense when something’s gone unsaid and is about to cause trouble later.
Put me in a workshop or a client meeting and I’m generally calm, thoughtful, regulated. I pause. I listen. I choose my words like they cost money.
Which makes what happens next slightly awkward.
For some people, work is where the wheels come off. The pressure, the politics, the performance. Home is where they’re patient, grounded, and human.
For others (hello), work is where the adult version of us turns up early, well dressed, and emotionally house-trained. Home, meanwhile, gets the off-duty edition. Less filtered. More honest. Occasionally less impressive.
Neither is right or wrong. It’s just… human.
Emotional intelligence is the ability to understand emotions.
Yours and other people’s.
Emotional maturity is what you do with that understanding when you’re tired, irritated, misunderstood, or not getting your own way.
And here’s the bit we don’t talk about enough.
We don’t distribute our emotional maturity evenly.
We deploy it where we think it’s required.
We conserve it where we feel safe.
And sometimes we spend it all day being brilliant for strangers, then come home emotionally bankrupt.
The people closest to us often get the most real version of us, not always the most regulated one.
That doesn’t mean we love them less.
If anything, it usually means we care more.
Closeness lowers the guard. History shortens the fuse. Familiarity breeds emotional shorthand. We skip steps. We assume repair will happen automatically.
And occasionally the emotional teenager bursts out, slams a door (metaphorically), and says something they immediately regret but will absolutely try to justify first.
The more interesting question isn’t “am I emotionally mature?”
It’s “where am I more mature, and where do I still outsource my regulation?”
Because maturity isn’t about being calm all the time.
It’s about recovery speed. Ownership. Impact awareness. Fewer explanations, cleaner apologies.
I’m slowly learning that emotional adulthood doesn’t mean bringing my work self home. That would be unbearable.
It means bringing a bit more pause into moments that matter.
Letting strong feelings exist without letting them drive.
And remembering that the people I love most deserve at least the same emotional care I give people who pay me.
If any of this feels familiar, congratulations.
You’re not failing.
You’re just still growing in public and in private, like the rest of us.
And yes, occasionally still a teenager.
Just with better vocabulary.
